Review by Booklist Review
Wade, a Black doula and educator, strongly promotes reproductive justice for all. To make her case, she effectively uses statistics, beginning with the fact that Black people are four-to-five times more likely than whites to die in childbirth. They're also more likely to deliver preterm or low-weight babies. White doctors seem to lack empathy for Black patients. Throughout her chronicle of racial trauma, Wade suggests healing exercises that call for journaling and sitting still. She also weaves in history, reaching back to 1619, when the first ships carrying enslaved Africans arrived in Virginia, and she reveals that a slaveholding surgeon pioneered the cesarean section by repeatedly experimenting on enslaved women's bodies. Endemic racism, of course, extends far beyond women's reproductive health into other healthcare realms, education, finance, and the legal system. One in 11 Black adults is currently under correctional control (in prison or on parole or probation). Wade, whose father was shot and killed when she was 13, writes that she feels "Black grief." Her call for liberation illuminates harsh realities and a path forward.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
This urgent debut from Wade, a doula, explores how racism drives high rates of perinatal and infant mortality in Black communities. She traces the history of medical racism to explain how medical institutions and professionals have failed the BIPOC community. Harrowing accounts of the experimental procedures that J. Marion Sims, the "Father of Gynecology," performed on Black women in the 1840s bolster the contention that doctors have long viewed Black women as disposable and insulated against pain. Study results, meanwhile, illuminate how this legacy persists in modern medical care; Wade describes research papers that found Black WIC recipients are less likely to receive breastfeeding counseling than white recipients and that Black infants are less likely to die if cared for by Black, rather than white, doctors. Wade's exercises encourage readers to reflect on trauma they may have experienced without judgment and to journal about one's relationship with healthcare providers. These exercises are important, the author contends, because collective liberation will stem from "liberated individuals" who understand their trauma and share a commitment to empowering marginalized communities. Wade's attention to how personal change can contribute to societal shifts elevates this above other titles that focus on the self, and the solid research drives home the scope of the problem. This deeply empathetic overview of medical racism will outrage and has the power to inspire change. (Mar.)
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A reproductive justice advocate and "radical full-spectrum doula" envisions a path to "collective liberation." Wade, the founder of Birthing Advocacy Doula Trainings, begins with an emotionally charged story about an imaginary Black mother named Reena who is in the middle of her second day of labor in a hospital in Atlanta. Reena's husband, Jarrod, and her mother, Hilary, who are also Black, are by her side, but they are unable to prevent Reena's death during childbirth. "Jarrod is now a widower and a single father," writes the author. "Hilary is now a childless mother, and Reena's baby…a motherless child." After a pause to guide readers through their bodily reaction to this anecdote--a practice that Wade employs throughout the text--Wade elucidates how each individual in this scenario was unable to see beyond their own traumatic experiences to notice the signs of the eclampsia that killed Reena. The author uses this illustrative story to support her thesis that justice can only be achieved if individuals actively process their traumas and use their power to advocate for justice. "Collective liberation is the idea that in order for us all to have equity in this world--equity meaning anything from the safety of birthing children to the ability to bring a baby home to a safe community (which is another form of reproductive justice)--we must all become liberated individuals," she writes. Although the text revolves around the questionable idea that individual transformation can overcome systemic oppression, Wade does a superb job of describing the causes and effects of White supremacist structures, whether she is discussing the brutal practice of using enslaved Black women's bodies for nonconsensual research or the creation of laws preventing Black midwives from serving their communities. Though the prose is sometimes clumsy, the book is thoroughly researched and compassionately written. Good reading for activists fighting for reproductive rights. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
